Just Let Me Do It Already
by Sinister Scribe
Summary: Formerly 'Just Let Me Write the Damn Action Sequences Already'. The thoughts I have whilst watching Season 3B. Mostly a collection of drabbles. If I was writing Outlaw Queen and BAMF Regina, this is what ye'd get. Rated mainly for language but that may change if I want to be saucy. Mostly Outlaw Queen as well.
1. Chapter 1

**I'm pretty sure i wasn't the only one who was staggeringly underwhelmed by the fight between Zelena and Regina in episode...3x16? Talk about your plot induced stupidity. **

**So i rewrote it, added some funnies, some outlaw queen, shook it and poured it onto the keyboard. **

**This is what came out, enjoy if you're of a mind to. Pretty much just meaningless nonsense anyway.**

**I have another outlaw quen if you squint drabble that i may post depending on the feedback for this one but i won't be putting any serious effort into them. I got Hyde and werewolves and woodcutters and shit to write about.**

**So, without further ado, read, love, review. **

**The Witch Off**

_**Sundown, Main Street**_

Where the hell was Regina?

Emma pressed her lips together and scanned the street, looking for the distinctive figure of the brunette cutting her way through the crowd. They would part for her, of course they would, but all Emma could see was a mob of tense faces watching her, waiting with her.

Zelena –the Wicked Witch of the damn West- had called Regina out. Sundown on Main Street, Regina had agreed.

Of course she had, with that mad glint in her eye, she had looked positively gleeful at the prospect of ripping the Witch's heart out. Eagerness pouring from her. Emma was more than a little surprised that Regina hadn't just started then and there with a fireball to the face.

But, no, the Witch and the Queen had agreed to go their separate ways. Both of them performing for the masses in their way.

They knew, they had to know, that all out war between them would level the town. Every brick, tree and building would be razed to the ground with two such heavyweights throwing down against one another.

Emma didn't know, but she suspected that was the only reason Regina had held off. To give time for Emma, David and Snow to evacuate the civilians. To perhaps clear a radius of empty buildings that would probably get trashed around the two witches.

Regina might have practically vibrated at the prospect of ripping the Witch a new one, but she had been a lot more stable in recent months. Well, since before the reversing of the Curse and the missing year in the Enchanted Forest, she had been a little scattier than she was now. She had seemed to be quieting. Whatever had happened in that year, Regina might not consciously remember it, but some part of her must have. Whatever that part was, it obviously provided a firmer bedrock for her to build her sanity up on again.

Maybe that was why Regina was nowhere to be found. Maybe that sane part of her had taken one look at the Wicked Witch and her army of infectious flying monkeys and decided that she wanted nothing to do with the whole business.

No. Emma discounted that before she'd even finished the thought. Regina had _never_ run from a fight and –no matter what had happened that she subconsciously remembered in that year- she wasn't about to start now.

"Does she really intend to make me wait?"

Emma twisted to look at the Witch. Black dress, big hat, chunky emeralds about her neck and a hauntingly familiar dagger in her grasp. Rumplestiltskin hovered at her shoulder, something stark in his eyes twisting and wrenching against the hold of his own dagger in her hand. Zelena bared her teeth in that smug grin of hers.

"Poor little Queen. I guess she's not as all powerful as she'd have you all believe." Zelena laughed through her teeth. "I _told_ you that Wicked would win over Evil."

Emma frowned at her.

"When the hell did you say that?" Emma looked about her companions for a flash of recognition from any of them. "You wiped their memories, how are they supposed to remember what you said?"

Zelena's face hardened into a frown and she lanced Emma with a look that pierced clean through her.

"You're not nearly as charming as you think you are."

"Nope, that would be dad." Emma smiled tightly.

This was getting fraught. Where the hell was Regina?

Emma clenched her jaw and stepped up to the Witch. Well, if Regina wasn't here, then Emma was going to have to live up to her own legend a little bit. She'd been the Saviour once before. She could do it again.

Probably.

Hopefully.

"The Queen isn't here to protect you, _Saviour._" Zelena ground out from behind bared teeth in a terrifying smile. "Perhaps you should reconsider your attitude."

"Perhaps you might wanna consider running while you still can." Emma held out her hands and hunched her shoulders. "I've seen what Regina can do when somebody pushes her. She pushes back. Like a linebacker."

Zelena blinked, her eyelid flickering at the reference she didn't understand but her pride not letting her admit it.

"Anything she can do, I've done before and I've done it better." Zelena shrugged an elegant shoulder. "She holds no fear for me. I just want you all to watch whilst I trounce the bitch."

"I call bull on that." Emma stepped closer. She had to keep the Witch distracted. Without Regina there, with the Dark One's dagger in Zelena's hand, all the magic in Storybrooke was at the mercy of the Wicked Witch. Once Zelena realised that, there was nothing to stop her turning them _all_ into flying monkeys. "You wanted to be out in the open so your little winged minions can get to you if you need help. You wanted to have a clear path out of here if you needed to zip off on your broom. I know your kind, this isn't grandstanding, this is a bluff."

Emma stepped even closer and got right in Zelena's face.

"Admit it, you're so scared that you couldn't put that dagger down if your life depended on it." Emma looked pointedly down at the knife with Rumplestiltskin's name scrolling elegantly across the blade.

"I need no Dark One to defeat my enemies."

"Oh, don't mistake me, don't put it down!" Emma pressed a hand to her chest and widened her eyes in mock innocence and then slowly let her expression darken into one of malicious glee. "Not if you want to survive the first five _seconds_ against Regina."

"What's she going to do? Throw a fruit cocktail at me?" Zelena snorted. Trying to hold onto her bravado, but Emma could see through it. There was a glint of fear in her eye.

"You have no idea, do you?" Emma managed a laugh from somewhere. "You're completely clueless. You genuinely have NO clue as to how powerful she is."

"I know she's not as powerful as I." Zelena waved it away contemptuously. "_I _am the first born. _I _am the greater sorceress. _Mine _is the power that will snuff hers OUT."

"I've seen her set fire to an ocean." Emma murmured and waited until Zelena turned to stare at her. "I've seen her shrug off a spell that crippled even me. She ripped out Peter Pan's heart, cast a curse that _Rumplestiltskin_ wasn't powerful enough to cast and she caused a damn ECLIPSE! She moved the freaking MOON and you think _you_ can stand up to her with your pigeon monkeys?!"

Emma threw back her head and laughed and it was that which sent Zelena over the edge.

"Enough!" Zelena whipped the dagger up and –for a moment- Emma thought she intended to cut her throat, but Rumplestiltskin's arm lashed up at the same time as the dagger. Like there really were puppet strings between his arm and the blade.

Concussive force blasted Emma off her feet and sent her sailing backwards into some of the crowd they had been trying to disperse earlier.

"Silence, you simpering twit!" Zelena hissed through bared teeth. She opened her mouth to say more but a howling wind came out of nowhere.

It roared around the corner of Main Street casting a cloud of dust and debris before it. The howling rose into a thunderous crescendo like a thousand swarms of bees. The ground shook and then, before any of them could truly believe what they were seeing, an honest to god _tornado_ rounded the bend.

"Hoooooleey crap!" Emma scrambled to her feet, aware of the running and screaming of the mob going on around her but –judging by Zelena's wide eyed expression- the new weather was no doing of hers.

"Emma, move!" David grabbed her hand, pulling at her but Emma shook her head.

"No, look!" She pointed to a shadow deep within the swirling vortex of horrendous wind and –as suddenly as it had come- the twister died.

The wind disappeared, the howling stopped and –for a moment- all was silent.

Emma looked up and frowned.

"Isn't that…?"

"Move!" A hook caught in the back of her jacket and Emma was bodily hauled out of the way when an eerily familiar farmhouse dropped out of the sky.

The sound was tremendous, a great cracking boom that shook the street.

The house, Zelena's house, crumpled like a box of eggs that someone had trodden on. The windows were shattered, the eaves cracked, the porch was in two halves, the roof subsided in a drunken slump and –slowly- the front door swung open on a broken creak.

Regina stepped from within the house onto the uneven and broken floorboards as if she did it every day. She straightened her coat's lapels, tugged at her sleeves to make sure they were even and flicked imaginary lint from her shoulder.

"_You!"_ Zelena's voice was ripped from her on a low snarl and Regina looked up as if just noticing her.

"Me." She swaggered off the porch and down the steps, smiling pleasantly. "Lovely house you have there, pity about the location, the more centralised it is, the higher the property value. I thought I'd help out."

"How _dare_ you?!" Zelena was all but spitting with her rage and Regina was –for once- the complete opposite.

She sauntered towards Zelena and fell into circling her as Zelena did the same. Her face was relaxed, her smile borderline friendly and her arms swung casually.

"It was a favour." Regina blinked as if in innocent confusion. "I thought you wanted us sisters to be closer."

Zelena seethed in a breath and growled it out from behind bared teeth.

Emma stood on the sidelines, panting with no real idea as to why. Her heart was thudding in her chest, kicking against her ribs, and she couldn't stop shivering.

The twister might have disappeared, snuffed by nothing more than Regina's desire for it to be so, but the oppressive air of an impending storm still pressed down on them like a cap of steel over the world.

This was going to be bad. It was going to be really bad.

Zelena mustered herself under some kind of control and sneered at Regina.

"You're fooling no one with your theatrics. Making me wait, the twister, the house, none of it shall save you."

Regina didn't rise to the bait. She looked up and down Zelena instead and her lip curled in a disdainful smirk.

"Didn't anyone tell you that black is _my_ colour?"

"Not anymore it's not." Zelena circled Regina counter to the rings Regina was prowling around her. "I'm going to take that from you too. I'm going to take _everything_ from you."

"And why is that, sister-sweet?" Regina's teeth clipped out every word. "Why the vendetta? What could I possibly have done to inspire such ire?"

"You had everything!" Zelena barked. "Everything I wanted, absolutely everything, and you didn't deserve one piece of it. You STILL don't deserve it, so I'm taking it. All of it."

Regina threw back her head and laughed. She laughed long and loud and in Zelena's face. When she mustered herself under control, still laughing in the face of her sister's rage, she spoke from behind bared teeth.

"What are you going to take? Hmm? My memories? Already gone. My family? They're all dead. My wealth? I've still got the biggest house here!" Regina laughed in her face again, swinging arm wide and almost giving a little two step with her glee. "You've already lost, you idiot! There's nothing to take."

"There's your life." Zelena snarled and Regina spun again, still dancing apparently, she grinned showing all her teeth.

"Take it, if you can, it'd be a welcome reprieve." She ground out every word and the mirth seemed to leave her for a moment. Her eyes bored into Zelena's, digging deep, searching for something.

"I will destroy you." Zelena growled but it was oddly calm. So sure, so certain.

If Regina felt a flicker of fear or doubt…it didn't show.

"God, you're boring." She said instead.

Had Emma blinked, she'd have missed it entirely. Even though she hadn't blinked, she barely saw Regina move.

There was a meaty _thwak!_ Zelena's head snapped to the side and she staggered back a step and it took a moment for Emma to realise that Regina had just let fly a mean right across her sister's jaw. This was a woman that was fast enough to catch crossbow bolts mid-flight. She might not have Muhammad Ali's height and breadth, but she could sure as shit punch faster than him and the slightly dazed look in Zelena's eyes showed it.

"Fight if you're going to fight, but enough of this idiotic posturing. Nobody cares about your baggage, they just want me to put you down like the rabid dog you are." Regina drawled in a thoroughly bored tone _knowing_ it was the exact thing that would goad Zelena into a rage.

It worked and then some.

"_Bitch!"_

Zelena's hand clawed in the air and Regina's choked. She was hoisted up off the ground as if an invisible hand had lifted her. Her toes pointed straight down at the ground but they didn't kick. She didn't struggle.

"I'm going to enjoy killing you." Zelena murmured and then flung her arm wide.

Regina was sent flying, spinning through the air, up and up and up and then crashing through the clock tower of the library.

Emma, eyes wide, breaths shivering hot and tight in and out of her chest, stared at the gaping hole in the shattered tower.

Regina did not reappear.

"Oh…_shit._" Emma murmured and Zelena looked disappointed.

"Well, that was about as exciting as expected." She huffed out a sigh. "What does a girl have to do to get a decent opponent around here?"

Emma kept glancing up at the clock tower.

No way. No _way_ had Regina just been taken out by this pilgrim hatted pretender. Regina was the Evil Goddamn Queen. She had survived curses and Dark Ones, swords and mobs, a soul sucking wraith, Prince Charming out for her head and the paperwork of running an entire town for thirty years. No way she had been defeated by someone that was rumoured to be done in by a bucket of water.

Zelena turned to Emma, teeth bared in a shark smile, and thunder boomed overhead. Her pale eyes glittered with a hungry kind of light when she looked over the crowd.

"Now…who wants their wings first?"

A beam of light came out of nowhere and blasted Zelena square in the chest. The Witch was sent flying backwards, punched into the road and dragged thirty feet. The ringing column of light thundering into her every inch of the way.

Emma twisted, her teeth bared in a fierce grin when she saw Regina standing in the ragged hole where the clock face had once been.

Without missing a beat, Regina hopped out of the window and plummeted to the ground.

There was a street shaking boom when she hit the ground in a crouch, one fist punching into the road hard enough to spiderweb cracks through the concrete, her other hand outstretched, still smoking from her spell.

She lifted her head, her face a grim warmask, and the whites of her eyes glowed like headlamps.

She slowly rose from her crouch and dusted off her coat with one red gloved hand. She never took her eyes from Zelena struggling to her feet, her hair ruined, her hat askew and smoke billowing from her chest where Regina had struck her.

Zelena, incredibly, still held the Dark One's dagger in her hand and she levelled it at Regina, spitting a command that held too much rage to be clearly heard.

Rumplestiltskin appeared behind Regina and grabbed her about the waist, pinning her arms to her side, intending to hold in her in place for Zelena's advance.

Zelena, being of the Enchanted Forest, had never really come across the concept of hand to hand combat for women. Not for witches at any rate.

Regina was a veteran of _wars._

She twisted like a cat, lashing backwards with her head and landing a stunning blow on Rumple's nose. He cried out, loosening his arms around her and she spun, lashing out with a heel kick to his chest that sent him careening backwards, smashing through the library doors and disappearing into the darkness beyond.

Regina spun, her teeth bared and eyes still glowing.

"This is pointless!" Zelena spat, hoisting herself out of the trench Regina had thrown her into. "Everything Rumplestiltskin taught you he taught me too and _I _was the better student!"

"That's the difference between you and I, dear," Regina started towards Zelena too, her heels clipping a fast tempo on the street, "YOU are still his student."

"I have long since surpassed him." Zelena growled.

"Says you." Regina bared her teeth in that grin again, her hands were glowing, the bones lighting them up from within. "You might have had a troop of monkeys to keep you company but I had something far better."

"And what was that?" Zelena lifted her hand and the glow in Regina's hands flickered, dying. Regina didn't seem all that bothered.

"Comic books."

Zelena had a moment to look confused and then Regina's eyes _exploded_.

Twin beams of ruby light blasting out of her eyes and smashing into Zelena's face.

The Witch screamed, staggering backwards, her skin sizzling and smoking. She cast wildly, throwing up a hasty shield and twisting away. The dagger flashed in the light and Regina coughed in surprise when the Dark One reappeared and sent her soaring with a wild gust of force.

Regina flew across the street and crashed into the trashcans outside one of the store fronts. She skipped over the ground and smacked into the wall leaving an imprint of her body in the brickwork before she slapped onto the sidewalk.

She growled and hopped to her feet. She didn't even look winded.

"This is getting old." Regina stomped her foot onto the lid of one of the trashcans and it bounced up into her hand. "Catch."

She hurled the trashcan lid like a discus and Zelena swore, ducking out of the way and still clutching at her face.

The metal disc had not been intended for her.

It smacked clean into Rumplestiltskin's middle and folded him in half, snapping his feet up off the floor and toppling him onto the ground.

Had she had to face the Dark One in open combat, a Dark One intent on killing her, one that had a vendetta against her, one that had access to the centuries of accumulated experience of the Dark One as he was and all those that had come before him…well, the fight not be going nearly so well as it was.

Rumplestiltskin had no desire to see Regina dead, nor any of the rest of them. He knew that Regina alone stood between Zelena and the rest of the town. He was doing what Zelena ordered and no more.

It was all he could do to help.

"Enough of this!" Zelena conjured a fireball and hurled it at Regina, having to take her hand away from her injured face to do so.

Regina blurred to the side she moved so quickly. The fireball splashing harmlessly against a brick wall.

"You have a little something," Regina lifted her hand and tapped the corner of her eye, "right here."

"You'll pay for that." Zelena seethed, her burned skin showing its natural emerald shade under the smoke. Regina had burned the magic clean out of her.

"We've already covered that I've got nothing left for you to take." Regina sauntered closer, her eyes searching again, looking for weaknesses.

Zelena endeavoured not to give her any.

"I could always take your heart." Zelena pounced, slinking forward and plunging her hand into Regina's chest.

The Queen tilted her head and arched a brow.

"What's the matter, big sis?" She gripped Zelena's wrist and hauled her hand from within her chest, her empty hand. She _squeezed_. She squeezed until bones cracked and Zelena grunted in pain. "Didn't mommy ever tell you never to bring a heart to a witch fight? Oh, that's right, she _abandoned_ you."

Zelena yelled and backhanded Regina in the temple with the hilt of the dagger.

Regina was staggered by _that_. The concussive blast of magic from the Dark One's dagger sent her reeling and she crashed to one knee.

"Where is it?!" Zelena thundered at her and Regina lifted her head, swinging her hair out of her face, blood dripping down her face. She bared her teeth in a bloodied grin.

"So _that's_ what you're after."

"And I'll get it too." Zelena held out her hand and her broom appeared in it with a thud.

Leaping into the air, Zelena billowed away into the night.

Regina rocketed up into the air after her. She kicked off the ground so hard that she left footprints punched into the asphalt three inches deep. She snatched the broom by the bushel and hauled, yanking it clean out from under the Witch. With a yell and a violent swing, Regina whirled the broom full circle and cracked it down over Zelena's back with the sickening whipping sound of a birch switch…only this switch was three inches in diameter.

Zelena coughed, so pained that she couldn't even scream, and smashed into the street.

Regina screamed, plunging down like a stooping hawk and landing Jimmy Choos first in Zelena's back. She dropped to straddling her sister's back in an instant and fisted her hand in Zelena's red hair, her hat long since knocked from her head.

"Now who's enjoying murder?" Regina snarled in an inhuman voice and hauled back, smashing Zelena's face into the ground.

Again and again and again.

She might have killed her, might have succeeded in wiping her sister out, had she not forgotten about her little minions.

With a screech, they stooped on her from the black of the night.

Regina made a choked off sound of pain when the monkeys tore into her. Grasping gnarled hands wrenched at her clothes and hair, dragging her from Zelena's back, pinning her to the street in a savage press of beating fists and sharp feathered wings.

Regina set fire to herself.

With a cacophonous boom, Regina was suddenly the epicentre of a small explosion. Her entire body wreathed in white hot flames that flashed blue. The heat was so intense that it pushed the gaping crowd back even further than their respectable distance of thirty yards.

Regina bounded up off the street and clasped the nearest monkey in a crushing bear hug.

It _shrieked_.

Clawing and biting at her, desperate to be free. It died in screaming agony. Thrashing into a cinder and finally crumbling to blackened ash in her arms.

She turned, a darkness within the white flame, barely visible beneath the magnesium sparking flare of fire she had conjured about herself and spoke in a hollow rasping voice that seemed to be moulded of the fire itself.

"Who's next?"

The monkeys danced back out of her range, shielding their faces from the solar burn of her flame. Their fur steaming and crisping she was so bright.

A light that snuffed when the dagger punched into her back.

Regina's mouth opened in a wordless gape and –after a stunned second- she bellowed a scream that blew every single one of the street lamps.

Zelena withdrew the knife with a wet _shunk_ of sound and Regina staggered away, spinning to snarl at her sister with an animal rage that seemed to shock even the piebald green witch with its ferocity.

Regina was so stoked with magic that she was bleeding fire, her jacket beginning to smoulder from the trailing plumes of power that sparked and whirled from her in waves and eddies.

She was suddenly as predatory as any big cat. Her entire posture changed and she began to prowl. Not the measuring circling that she had danced earlier but a low and measured gait, coiling her body tighter and tighter in preparation for the pounce.

"Drip, drip, drop…" Regina's teeth bared in a manic grin, her flaming blood beginning to bloom lower and lower over her jacket. She didn't appear to notice.

"Little…April…shower…"

"What?" Zelena looked strongly as if she suspected the Dark One's dagger had driven her sister completely stark raving mad.

At least, she thought that right up until the first droplet of water hit her face and burned into her like the most virulent of acids.

Zelena without the broad brim of her hat was left open to the elements and she clutched at her face, the water doing absolutely nothing to soothe the burns she had already weathered.

"What's the phrase," Regina tilted her head, the madness consuming her features entirely, "bring the thunder?"

"You wouldn't." Zelena shook her head. "You _couldn't._"

"I moved the moon, dear. Clouds are a cakewalk." Regina sneered and raised her hand. She snapped her fingers once and the sound was a clap of thunder rather than any mortal sound and the heavens opened.

Water, a deluge, a torrent, a _plague_ of water fell on them all.

Zelena shrieked and disappeared in a spiralling plume of smoke. Her monkeys screaming, clapping into the air with an applause of terror.

The rain thundered, raindrops the size of golf balls splattering the street so hard they bounced twice. They hit so hard that the crowd were actually bowed under their weight. It was seconds for the water to cover Main Street, overwhelming the storm drains in moments, rising to their ankles in less than a minute.

Then it stopped.

Emma stood alongside her companions and watched Regina stand tall and proud in the street, her back no longer flaming at least, and steam rising from her like a cloud of her own malevolence given form.

Her hand was still raised and she slowly waved it forward.

Emma's neck craned back in worry when dark shadows passed over them. She frowned when she saw great blocky shapes lower to the street.

Shipping containers.

Three huge shipping containers, holes punched into their underside, swung over the street and then touched gently down, neatly lined up at the side of the road.

A trick.

A powerfully magical trick, but a con nonetheless.

Emma's lips kicked in a smirk. She was soaked to the skin, her hair plastered down her back, the cold rapidly seeping into her bones but Regina had _done it_.

Not defeated Zelena, but certainly given her a hard enough kick in the teeth to go away and think about her life.

Regina straightened her shoulders, shook out her hair that was as soaked as the rest of them, and stalked away down the street.

"Regina!" Emma called out to her, running after the older woman. "Regina, wait!"

Emma hesitated to grab her by the shoulder, mindful of the wound she had taken, so she slipped in front of her and forced her to stop.

"Where are you going?"

"Not now, Miss Swan." Regina sidestepped her and continued down the street.

"Seriously, Regina, you just kicked the Wicked Witch of the West's _ass_. I'd say that's earned you at least a thank you."

"Fantastic. You're welcome." Regina attempted to step around her again but stalled when she came face to mob with her audience. "What?"

"You alright?"

It was Granny who spoke in her gruff way. It was only then that Regina noticed the green and white box held in her hand. She had brought a first aid kit.

How odd.

"I'm fine."

"You're bleeding."

This from Hook at her back and Regina sighed but didn't turn to look at him.

"Of this I am aware." She shooed at the crowd. "Excuse me."

Grumpy didn't budge.

"Why'd you kill one of the monkeys?"

"What?" Regina snapped at him, her patience rapidly dwindling.

"The monkeys! You know they're our people and you killed one of them! What if it was one of our friends? One of our family?!"

Regina levelled a long and blank look at him and then appeared to come to a decision.

She punched him harder than she'd punched Zelena.

Grumpy was punted back several feet, further than Gold had flung Emma, and he crashed to the street.

Regina stalked through the gap left by his sudden departure and was sure to step on him rather than over him on her way out.

"Oh good," Granny drawled, "I was worried she'd actually turned over a new leaf and I was going to have to start liking her."

"Regina, come on, at least let us take a look at that wound." Emma hurried after Regina again and drew level with her in time to see her cough.

It was a horrid wet sound, blood blurting from between Regina's lips and she lifted her hand to try and catch it, like she intended to put it back in and then her legs buckled.

Regina staggered badly, hitting one of the cars lining the street and sliding down it to thump onto the road.

"Regina!" Emma hurried forward and dropped to her knees beside the sorceress.

Regina blinked blearily and coughed again. She choked out the words, wet and bubbling.

"He should have let me…pass."

"What, so you could die halfway home rather than where there's someone to help you?" Emma snapped and moved out of the way for Granny who dropped into a crouch at their side without hesitation.

She snapped open the medical kit and measured the blood soaking down Regina's chin and into that expensive coat of hers with a worried grimness.

"Too late." Regina coughed a sodden laugh. "She punctured my lung…bitch…"

"Your family's fucked up." Emma agreed and helped Granny open Regina's coat to reveal her shirt underneath. A bloom of dark low on her chest on the right side. The dagger had punctured her clean through and through.

Granny swore under her breath and looked over at Emma. She subtly shook her head.

"No." Emma shook her head. "That Witch has killed enough of our people, I'm not letting her take another."

"What…going to…try _saving_ me?" Regina laughed again, more blood bubbling from her mouth.

"Come on, Regina!" Emma snarled at her. "Heal yourself. I know you can."

"Can't…actually." Her breath was rattling in her throat now and she lolled back against the car. Her eyes were glassy and beginning to lose focus. "Magicking superpowers…not as easy as…it looks."

"No. You said earlier, you don't lose. Come on. Heal yourself. There's got to be something left."

"Liar." Regina smirked and pointed to herself. "I've done nothing…but lose…since the day…I was born."

Regina began to sag, sliding further down the car, the light in her eyes began to dim.

"No!" Emma gripped her by the lapels and hauled her close. Regina hung limply in her hold. "No more. Not again. I'll not break this curse only to have to watch Henry have to grieve for his father as well as his mother."

"Take him away…" Regina's eyes fluttered, closing, Emma feared for the last time. "Take him…to…happinnn…"

"No." Emma caught Regina when she went completely limp, sagging forward into her chest.

She looked over to Granny, open mouthed, then up at David.

He stared down at the suddenly tiny seeming Evil Queen. The mortal shell left over from a woman that had been so much larger than life. She slumped against Emma, her eyes closed as if in sleep and he…no.

"No." He shook his head and looked Emma dead in the eye. "Save her."

"What?" Emma gaped up at him.

"I don't like it, but you make her stronger. Her experience and your power…you two can do great and terrible things together. Save her."

"I don't know how."

"Now would be an excellent time to learn, girl." Granny offered sagely and Emma looked between them for long pounding moments.

"Right…cheat death…right." She looked down at Regina and moved suddenly, setting her back, laying her out on the ground. "Pretty sure it's not the first time you've done it you canny bitch."

Emma hesitated for a moment and then set her hands over Regina's sternum and her forehead. That seemed about right. She closed her eyes and dug deep, as deep as she'd dug for Neal and deeper still. Regina was tapped out, Emma could feel it. That yawning reservoir of strength that the Queen had all but run dry.

Emma needed to fill it again…with what?

Power, she needed power, she had to…the mains.

Emma could feel it around her. The thrum of electricity running under where she sat and zipping over her head from the wires both above and below ground.

Yes, that would do nicely.

Emma summoned it, all of it. She gathered it to her and the lights dimmed. She kept pulling and they flickered, sputtering, dying. First on Main Street then the block, then the block beyond that. A radius of ten blocks later and Emma was only halfway done.

Electricity zapped and sang around her. It cracked the air like a thousand whips, making her hair stand on end and leaving the taste of dead pennies in her mouth. The stench of ozone pressed down on them like a physical thing and Emma dug deeper still. Right down into the heart of herself, right down to the bones of her soul and she sucked out the damn marrow because they _needed_ Regina.

Emma might be good for breaking curses but Regina was going to be the one keeping them alive and giving her time to do it.

Emma thrummed with power, shuddering with it. It crackled from her skin in a hazy corona that drove Granny and Charming back several steps.

Sucking in a deep breath, Emma braced herself, and shunted all of it, every last watt, into Regina.

The effect was instantaneous and explosive.

"_FUCK!"_

Regina roared back to consciousness, legs kicking and arms clawing. She shoved past Emma, hurling herself to her feet and ran several steps before she crashed into one of the shipping containers she had dropped there earlier. She hunched her arms in towards her chest, hopping from foot to foot, lightning striking from her expensive shoes and grounding itself into the street.

The whites of her eyes glowed like headlamps again, the iris completely neon purple, and her hair tumbled about her head tossed by a wind that no one else could feel.

"_Fuck!"_ Regina shrieked again and punched the shipping container hard enough to punt a dent into the solid steel hull. "Fu-uck." She shivered convulsively again and Emma cautiously weaved to her feet.

"I think I might have broken her."

"Her Majesty knows how to swear?" Granny smirked and folded her arms over her chest. "Interesting."

"Gods above, Swan, what did you DO?!" Regina tried to still herself but couldn't. It would have been funny, her little hopping from side to side, but she did look to be in quite a bit of pain. She clutched at her ribs and gave a harsh yell that sparked blue from behind her teeth.

"I…healed you. Gave you some magic back."

"And half the power grid." Regina clutched at her ribs still and grimaced, twisting herself back and forth. "I taste ham. Oh, this is horrible. Gods, it hurts. Is my hair on fire? I think you melted my underwire." Regina jittered back and forth in a little circle, trying to burn off some of the energy that had lit her up like a Christmas Tree.

"My _eyelashes_ hurt. Ugh. Take me to the vet's and put me down, I'll never race again. Is anyone wearing green? I don't think I can see green anymore." Regina squinted at Granny and then David. "You all look to be British Racing Fuchsia."

"Definitely broke her." Emma muttered.

"I dunno, I kinda like her better this way." David appeared at her side and Emma looked up at him, her mouth twisting.

"Well, we're a little screwed if she can't see green. Public enemy number one would then be rather well camouflaged, don't you think?"

David burst out laughing.

"Am I inside out? I feel like I'm inside out." Regina was clutching Granny's shoulders and looking her in the eye. She suddenly clapped her hands over her nose. "I think I can smell radio."

"Maybe we should hit her on the head. Try and switch channels."

"Yeah, because we need to add concussion to this!" Emma snapped and folded her arms over her chest, frowning at Regina who appeared to be trying to pluck something from Granny's aura.

"She'll be fine." David waved it away. "Way I figure it, it's just a different kind of mad. At least this one might be entertaining rather than eviscerating."

"Can anyone else hear the Conan Obrien Show?" Regina stuck a finger in her ear and waggled it as if to clear up her reception.

"Okay, I think you need a drink." Granny decided for her and reached out, taking Regina's hand in hers. "Come on, on the house."

"Say it ain't so!" Regina was towed along behind Granny already quite considerably drunk on a fair few megawatts of electricity and some good old fashioned charcoal refined Saviour Power. "You're giving stuff away?"

"Just to you and just for tonight. Don't get used to it."

"I am going to drink my weight in Talisker." Regina declared.

"Should we be adding alcohol to this?" David murmured to Emma.

They both watched when Regina passed the dwarves helping Grumpy to his feet. She quite deliberately leaned over and extended a single finger, helping them to a generous portion of the lightning like static electricity she had floating around her.

Every single one of the dwarves yelled in pain and dropped to the street, twitching.

"Regina!"

The sorceress was too busy holding herself up whilst laughing hysterically to take any notice.

"Come on, girl." Granny sighed as if this was all in a day's work. She'd raised a werewolf after all. Maybe it was. "There's a bottle or six with your name on them."

"Excellent." Regina snapped the fingers of her free hand and nearly fell over when she forgot to compensate for the weight of a full bottle of whiskey suddenly being in her palm.

She staggered, catching herself with a human pretzel impression and then snapped the fingers of her other hand. Two crystal tumblers appeared there and she grinned beatifically at them.

"Now, you've been a wonderful audience, such a great crowd." Regina began to back down the street. "Thanks so much, tip your waitress, I'll be here all week and try the lasagne!"

Regina held the bottle of whiskey and the tumblers up into the air and then disappeared in a puff of glittering smoke that was definitely a family trademark.

Emma let out a long sigh of displeasure.

Granny summed up the situation rather aptly.

"That had better not have all been a ruse just to get my secret stash."

_**The Forest…**_

Robin whirled when he felt that familiar pressure of magic against his senses and spun, bow already raised.

He yanked it up when the magic was purple and Regina all but fell out of the cloud of it.

"Whoop!" She staggered and righted herself, managing not to drop anything she was holding. "Shit."

It was a few more staggering steps and a bemusing little twirl that sent the skirt of her coat to flaring before she came to a halt. She spun to find Robin staring at her, the hilt of his crossbow canted on his hip.

"Ah, there you are, I brought booze." Regina waggled the bottle and the tumblers at him.

"I take it the fight went well?"

"I didn't die for long." Regina nodded and walked with that exaggerated care that drunkards have towards the stump he had been guarding all night. She set the two tumblers down and then looked at the bottle of whiskey with great interest and very little understanding.

"Didn't die for…right." Robin edged closer, watching her finally figure out that she had to break the wax seal on the bottle so she could open it. She sloshed three fingers worth into each glass and then took a generous pull from the bottle herself.

She looked him dead in the eye, measuring his cautious observation and frowned.

"What?"

"I just…it's still here."

"What is?"

"Your heart?" Robin looked more worried.

"Oh! Right. That. Wonderful." She picked up her glass and drained half of it in a single gulp. The woman drank faster than Little John did and she _certainly_ didn't have the mass to handle so much so quickly.

That and she already seemed plenty drunk enough for a whole tavern of people.

"You keep it." She waved his glass at him. "Drink!"

"I, you…what?"

"As is made quite evident, the first place my dear sister is going to look for my little coal ticker is in my chest…or my house or my office or my vault or…I don't know…my favourite coffee cup at the diner. I need to be unpredictable."

"So far so good." Robin finally accepted the drink she was waving at him. Accept it or wear it seemed to be his options.

"So, the way I figure it, I give it to you. An overture of trust that NO ONE would expect of me and –boom- problem solved. Jenny Green Teeth will never find the hateful thing."

Regina used her left hand to try and reach her right pocket and walked in a little circle before she managed to catch what was inside it. She hauled out a black pouch and waved it at him.

"Mmm!" She was too busy drinking to speak so he reached out and took the pouch from her while she drained her glass.

"Put it in that. Should mask any magical signature that it gives off. It's fairly potent after all." Regina went on to pour herself a _full_ glass of whiskey, help herself directly from the bottle again and then clunk it onto the stump once more.

"Much like its owner." Robin agreed, dropping to his knees and digging into the sod at the base of the stump. He unearthed the heart and stowed it in the pouch. He rose to his feet and looked her right in the eye. Hers were glassy and unfocussed, his were worried and icy blue. "You're going to trust me? A common thief."

"Can't steal what's given, bowman." Regina shrugged and smiled at him in an admittedly winsome manner.

Robin huffed out a breath and raised his glass to his lips, taking a deep pull from it.

"Attaboy." Regina smirked at him, weaving a little.

"You are very drunk, madam."

"And YOU are very…English." She decided after a moment. "It's a _terrible_ quality."

Robin gave a bemused smirk.

"Though you are quite pretty, so I suppose that's something." She reached up and clapped her hand three times against his cheek quite hard. She rested her hand there and looked at him dead in the eye, she frowned after a moment. "Gods, I _really_ hope I got laid in the missing year because a year and a half without getting any is just…saddening."

"Laid?"

"Like a rug." Regina smiled in that charming way of hers again. Though he would be sure never to use that particular adjective around her. Not if he wanted to keep his skin where it was. "A screaming, sweaty, bonelessly happy, rug."

Robin caught on and his eyebrows rose.

"Ah, well, I suppose…there's no reason you wouldn't have had…companionship."

"Aside from being the scourge of all the realms, mass murderer of thousands and having a sex drive that could keep a brothel in business for a year?"

Robin blinked at that.

"Some of those are admirable qualities." He said perfectly seriously.

"I KNOW, right?" Regina turned and hopped up onto the stump, pitching her empty glass away and drinking directly from the bottle again. "I mean, gods, I just hope he was human. That long without –you know- a girl's standards can be _lowered_."

"Human?" Robin couldn't prevent his curiosity from surfacing.

The queen was a puzzle, one he wanted to take apart and put back together again only once he understood all the pieces. He couldn't really say why, he just had to know her and –while she seemed to be opening up to him one fractured piece at a time- well, there was a reason that he was a thief. Being preciously low on scruples being one of them.

"I don't judge!" Regina waved effusively with the bottle. "Male, female, vampire, werewolf, human, satyr, merman…if they can make me scream I'm of an open mind." She nodded firmly to herself and then looked over at him, her eyes clambering down him and then crawling all the way back up. She tilted her head.

"How's your drink?"

"Entertaining." Robin was still nursing his first one and she was two thirds through the bottle.

"You lightweight." She noticed too.

"I am not as practiced in the art of drunkenness as some." He agreed.

"That's quittin' talk." Regina sloshed more whiskey into his glass. "You don't take over the known world without being able to hold your alcohol. I just swallowed the power grid and _I'm _still standing. You've got to keep up."

To that effect, she drained the rest of the bottle in three long swallows. She hurled it up into the air and blasted it out of the sky with a fireball that crackled with lightning.

Shimmering sand rained down on them both and she laughed merrily to herself. She looked over at him again.

"Drunk enough for me to have my wicked way with you yet?" She wrinkled her nose when she realised what she had said. "Ooh, no, not wicked. I promise not to turn green until at LEAST tomorrow morning."

Robin smirked and looked down at his glass.

"Not quite, your majesty. Besides, I would much rather you be sober to enjoy the experience."

"Pfffft." Regina huffed out a breath and looked out into the dark of the forest. "Figures."

"I would be no man at all if I were to take advantage of your drunkenness, milady."

"Even if I promise to respect you in the morning?"

"Even then."

"Alright! I declare this night a total loss." Regina hopped down from the stump and nailed the landing even though she nearly pitched right over at one point. She held her hands out for balance and then turned to look up at him. "Tall." She muttered.

"Small." He countered and she smirked in that drunken way of hers.

"I prefer 'snug'." She wrinkled her nose when she smiled at him and he thought it was quite adorable…until her words and her meaning caught up with him.

"I look forward to finding out." He saluted her with his glass and drained it, not missing the hungry way she watched his throat work. Her tongue stroked over her lower lip and then sucked it between her teeth.

Robin could feel her heart inside his shirt and the pouch he'd wrapped it in. It was pounding hot and heavy against his skin.

Her fingers suddenly hooked in his belt and Robin's eyes flew wide when he was quite suddenly yanked against her. He yelped when static electricity struck him several times where their bodies were pushed flush together and she pounced on the opportunity to haul his mouth down over hers and kiss him like a damn demon.

Robin made a groaning sound of pleasure and pain. Her mouth was skilful and her tongue licked him in all the right ways, but her body was crackling with an energy that lanced him wherever they touched. His lips were already chapped from it and she seemed to belatedly realise. Drawing away from him and rocking down onto the flats of her feet again.

Her tongue slid over her lip once more, savouring his taste like a tiger after a hearty meal and she smirked lazily.

"Oh yes, you'll keep." She smoothed her hand, more energy whipping between them, down over his chest, and pursed her lips in a pout of appreciation.

Robin was pretty sure that his hair was standing on end.

"Now, I'm going to go before I throw up on you."

With that happy declaration, she disappeared in a plume of smoke, her laughter echoing in the empty air she left behind.

Robin huffed out a breath between tingling lips and shoved a hand through his hair.

She was going to be a tough one to court, that was for sure. Her sense of humour alone might kill him.

Robin turned, scooping up his crossbow and hiking into the woods. He was halfway home before he realised he hadn't made the conscious decision to court her. It just seemed like the most natural thing in the world.

Oh, lord, was he in trouble.


	2. Chapter 2

**Okay, i think there's been a misunderstanding. Mainly because i didn't mark this story as complete. My bad. **

**Anyways, the Witch Off was supposed to be a one-shot sort of deal but I had this written and you guys expressed interest so I rattled off an ending and decided to post. Also too lazy to deal with the faff of starting a new story so i decided to tack it onto the last one. **

**These chapters, if i add more, will most likely be disjointed and in no way connected. Probably reactionary to the shenanigans that go on within the show. Anything that displeases me Outlaw Queen wise or Awesome wise will most likely be fixed in this collection. **

**So, in short, not a proper story, but the impression thereof. **

**On the bright side: more crazy Regina! **

**God, i love writing her at her most bat shit insane self. It's something i miss in the show and something that was never fully explored when it comes to the manic side of things. They've also not really delved into how low she'd be at the start of the missing year. Which is what i'm gonna do here. **

**A bit less raunchy and ridiculous than my last outing and a bit more fluffy. At the end anyway. **

**Thanks for all the other reviews from guests and people i can't otherwise reply to, the reaction for the last scene in this was far better than i expected. I didn't think everyone would have been so jonesing for a proper witch fight. I may add just more scenes of Regina being BAMF as well, for all you action whores like myself out there :D**

**Anyway, read and review because i love to be pandered to XD**

**Water**

Regina had always been a bit…_off._

She had hidden it well, Snow had never seen through her act all through Regina's marriage to Leopold. She had believed the woman that had raised her into adulthood had loved her as much as Snow did her…but Regina was mad. Quite mad.

Snow had been hopeful the last few months. She had seen a change in the Queen. She had become quieter, more aware of her crazed tendencies, and had truly seemed to be trying to curb them for the sake of Henry. She had been heartbroken upon undoing the Curse, losing Henry, the only thing that mattered to her…and she had fallen back into somewhat worrying habits.

It had been three days since Regina had dropped the veil around her castle and allowed them back inside. Three days since she had run into the Witch herself. Three days since she had considered putting herself under a sleeping curse –according to Robin- and three days since she had discovered her new _purpose_.

Destruction.

And, judging by the state of her vault, she was starting with herself.

"You're sure she's in there?" Snow looked up at Robin and the archer nodded.

"No one has seen her since she dropped the spell keeping us out." Robin shrugged. "I saw her cast the doors apart and go inside after she decided to destroy her sister. She has not left."

"Just because you haven't seen her, doesn't mean she has been stuck in there all that time." Snow smirked. "Regina is more than capable of moving about unseen, believe me."

"She has not left. She is in there and she is driving herself mad."

"Er." Snow murmured.

"Pardon?"

"Madd_er_." Snow corrected him idly, eying the vault doors.

Truth be told, she _was_ worried for Regina. She had become something of a fixture in the last few months. Giving up _everything_ to undo what she had done. Regina was broken enough as it was. Losing Henry had almost been more than she could bear and –now- she had just found out that yet another one of her family was worse than even she was. First her mother and now her sister. How many times could she take having proof that her blood was tainted with evil thrown in her face? How long could she go under the crushing certainty that she had been _born_ bad before she started bowing to it again?

Snow knew, she just _knew_, that was how Regina would see it.

Snow didn't believe that, not for a moment. No one was BORN bad. Regina had been broken. Broken and bloodied and beaten until all that was left was a wild animal that lashed out when she thought she might be hurt. She'd been trying to put herself back together, trying hard, Snow wasn't about to let her relapse.

"Be that as it may, should we not at least check that the front line of our defence against the Witch is at least conscious?" Robin's barb was low and veiled in an almost jovial tone but Snow twisted to look at him, not missing it.

"Why so concerned?" The question came out a little more belligerent than she had intended, but the last thing Snow wanted was Regina being backed into a corner.

She'd come out swinging and Snow did not –for one second- think that Robin would last more than half a moment against Regina.

The queen might hesitate when it came to separating Snow's heart from her body or her head from her neck, but Robin was cushioned by no such consideration.

Regina would chew him up and spit out the gristle and she wouldn't even break stride doing it.

"She saved my son's life. It is not a debt I view paid so lightly as breaking into a castle. Tis child's play to one such as I." Robin shrugged. "I must repay what she did with equal measure. To do less would be to say that my son's life is worth such a paltry sum."

"So Regina has you as her minder whether she likes it or not?" Snow tilted her head, smirking despite herself.

"Aye, it seems that way." Robin tilted his head and shrugged.

"Well, I suppose we'd better go and poke the sleeping bear then." Snow rallied herself and turned, nudging open the doors to the vault that were just a hair ajar.

That in and of itself did not bode well.

"Regina?" Snow tentatively pushed the golden doors aside and trod softly into the cavernous room.

Chaos.

Books, potions, dresses, even enchanted hearts, were strewn everywhere. Crumpled bits of parchment, some of them singed, some of them still smouldering, writing scrawled over the formerly pristine walls and buckets. Buckets upon buckets upon _buckets_ strewn about the halls. Every single one of them filled to the brim with water.

"Regina?" Snow picked her way carefully through the vault, venturing deeper and ever deeper into the forbidden space.

Regina had been about as welcoming as she was capable, all but handing the castle over to Snow and Charming, but she was still a former Evil Queen. There were three places off limits; Regina's bedroom, the apple tree garden and the vault.

Snow, knowing how close to the edge Regina was skating, had made it an act of treason for any to disobey Regina's wishes in that regard.

A beheading would be kinder than whatever punishment Regina would dish out to the offending parties at any rate.

"Regina?" Snow called a little louder. The last thing she wanted to do was startle Regina.

That would be akin to walking up to a sleeping tiger and kicking it in the tail.

She heard the muttering first.

Quickening her pace, Snow strode down the corridor towards the faint murmur of Regina's voice and rounded the corner. She ground to a halt at the sight that greeted her so quickly that Robin walked smack into the back of her.

"Apologies, majesty." Robin quickly steadied her with a hand on her elbow and –when she didn't react at all to being nearly bowled over by him- followed her gaze to see what was so consuming a sight. "Gods abound, the woman has _legs._"

Robin nearly choked on the words when Snow elbowed him sharply in the gut for…for…leching.

Even if it was somewhat warranted considering Regina's –ahem- clothes.

"Nope!" The queen, who floated about ten feet off the ground in nothing but a long white linen shirt, snapped the book she was reading closed and pitched it blindly behind her.

Snow hopped back before the tome –which had to way several pounds- landed on her head and shortened her height by half a foot.

"Come on, come on, come _on!"_ Regina growled to herself, still oblivious to –or ignoring- the interlopers into her territory. "Buckets, buckets, buckets, buckets…why am I haunted by fucking BUCKETS?!"

Regina tore another book from the shelves and flipped feverishly through the old parchment pages. She began to pace back and forth in the air, apparently unaware that she had switched her own personal gravity off.

"Regina?"

That finally seemed to get through to the queen and –with a thundering boom that shook the entire room- Regina thumped to the floor.

She turned, so slowly she turned, and tilted her head, her eyes finding Snow's with a horrifyingly vacant dimness to them.

Regina's eyes narrowed for a second and she stared at Snow and Robin for a long moment, her eyes ticking between them, and then her brows rose and her face lifted in an almost smile.

"Snow." Regina spoke as if she had placed a name to a face she hadn't seen in decades. "And…friend."

"Regina, are you alright?" Snow carefully approached when that glassy look had returned to Regina's eyes.

Regina stared hard at Robin for a long moment, trying to remember his name probably, and then belatedly realised that Snow was addressing her.

"Hmm?"

"You've been in here for days…rearranging. Are you alright?"

"Oh!" Regina shook her head and blinked rapidly. "Perfectly fine, dear. Just doing a bit of light reading." Regina waved airily at the rest of the room and Snow felt something visceral clench low in her gut when she got a proper look at the other woman.

Now that she was closer, Snow could see the dark circles under the Queen's eyes. She could see that the whites of her eyes had burst into pink because they were so bloodshot. Her pupils were so blown her eyes were a light swallowing black, her pulse hammered at her throat and there was a sheen of sweat on her skin.

She did not look well at all.

"_The Grimmoire of Dark Magyks_…light indeed." Robin prodded at a book with his toe and hopped back with a sound of surprise eking from his throat when the pattern on the book split apart to reveal a madly rolling human eye staring up at him.

"Careful with that!" Regina hurled herself forward, nearly tripping over her own bare feet to snatch the book up off the floor and clutch it to her chest. "He's sensitive." She hissed.

The book eyeballed them from over the top of her folded arms. It was then that Snow noticed the blood staining one of Regina's sleeves.

"You're not fine at all! You're hurt." Snow reached for her and Regina hissed like a startled cat, hopping back out of range.

She shook her head sharply, three times, and shrugged the feral from her face.

"I told you I'm fine." She blinked, three times, and then seemed to become fractionally more lucid. "Why are you here? Has the Witch returned?"

Something hungry and shark like took up residence in Regina's eyes. She bared all her teeth in a facsimile of a smile.

"No!" Snow held up her hand as if to ward Regina off and her face fell. "No, nothing like that, we were worried about you."

"Were 'we'?" Regina looked between Snow and Robin again and obviously still couldn't summon his name. "Why?"

"We haven't seen you in three days."

"So?"

"We were worried." Snow repeated herself and Regina just frowned.

"How _odd._" Regina leaned forward and studied Snow a little closer. "Have you ever noticed that you're one letter away from being a sow?"

"Uh…" Snow glanced at Robin and he shrugged, eyes wide.

He could not and would not claim to know the Evil Queen in any real sense of the word but…this seemed out of character for her. Mean, yes, mad, definitely, but borderline delirious? That didn't fit with someone who had all but taken over the known world.

"Well, it's easily missed," Regina waved it away and tossed the book she had been clutching so closely to her chest seconds before, "I just realised myself five years ago. Was it five years ago? It may have been yesterday. Time is a funny thing that way."

"Majesty," Robin's voice seemed to get through to Regina when her settings seemed stuck on Ramble, "if I may enquire; the buckets?"

"It's a secret!" Regina suddenly stepped close to Snow and clutched her arm. "Why is he asking so many questions? Who sent him? Can we trust him? We don't even know his name."

"Regina…"

"No, dear, that's my name." Regina frowned at Snow. "Are you quite well?"

"_I'm_ fine." Snow spoke firmly.

"Good, good." Regina patted her hand and then seemed to notice something. She slung her arm over Snow's shoulder and held her very close, whispering in a low voice to her. "I don't know if you've noticed, but we're surrounded by…_buckets._"

"Um, I had noticed that."

"Good show." Regina squeezed her shoulders. "Now, we mustn't let on, they're the Witch's."

Snow frowned.

"Shh!" Regna clapped her hand over Snow's mouth. "Don't tell anyone. It's a secret."

Snow nodded behind Regina's hand and she slowly pulled her hand away, eyes narrowed to make sure that Snow didn't blurt out any sensitive information about galvanised pails.

Snow pressed her lips together and glanced at Robin again. Regina followed her gaze and leaned even closer to Snow, whispering again.

"He may be a spy for the buckets. We must watch him."

Snow huffed out a breath and mulled over what to do. Regina was quite possibly their only hope of defeating the Witch and she appeared to have gone completely bonkers. She needed to get her to snap out of it…but she also needed to keep her head and all other body parts she had grown fond of attached. Angering Regina would gain her nothing and would quite possibly lose her everything.

Best to play along then.

"Well," Snow whispered in return, fully aware that Robin could hear them both perfectly well, "that's why I brought him. To keep an eye on him."

"Ooh, I _like_ it!" Regina snapped her fingers, seemingly unaware of the fire that sparked from them. "Very clever. You're no flying monkey, but you make a good minion." Regina patted her shoulder and then drifted away.

"Thanks." Snow muttered and Robin watched Regina like she was turning into a flying monkey herself. He stepped closer to Snow.

"What's wrong with her?"

"I don't know. I've never seen her like this. She is a _master_ of hiding her emotions. The fact that she's even letting this side of herself show…" Snow swallowed hard. "It doesn't bode well."

"I want one." Regina spun to face them again, planting her hands on her hips. She seemed to consider and then nodded to herself. "Yes. Perhaps more than one. I think an even dozen. Twelve ought to be enough, yes?"

"Twelve what, majesty?"

Regina looked at Robin and then blinked languidly. Her gaze raked him and then a lazy smirk quirked her lips.

"Inches. Think you can muster a shaft like that, bowman?"

Robin coughed and Snow's eyes went wide.

"That was it, flying monkeys!" Regina snapped her fingers like a shotgun going off and pointed at Snow. "I want a dozen. Where can I get them?"

"From the Wicked Witch?" Snow blurted, put on the spot.

"Shit." Regina glared at the floor so hard it smoked. "I doubt my dearest sister is willing to part readily with them. They _are_ good though." Regina looked up and swayed a little, her grin a little too wide and her eyes a little too glassy again. "Thrice as quick as a man, five times as strong, the teeth of a wolf, opposable thumbs and they have WINGS!" Regina threw her hands up.

"What did I have?" Regina hunched her shoulders in a tight shrug. Her hands remained in the air. "Knights. Knights with black faces…bit politically incorrect now that I ponder it."

"Maybe you could make one." Snow tried to steer the conversation a little. "If they're a product of magic, you should be able to reverse engineer the spell, I should think…maybe it might even lead you to the Witch."

"Oh, I tried that months ago." Regina waved it away, finally lowering her arms, and then frowned. "Days. Hours. Months? Eh, who cares?"

"Majesty, I wonder if I might impress upon your hospitality for a drink?" Robin smiled congenially. "I find myself parched from the journey."

"Oh, hello." Regina noticed Robin for the first time. Again. "Of course. Where are my manners?"

Regina spun away and stared about herself for a moment. She hummed to herself and then darted forward, dancing over books, hopping over dresses and sidling between mountainous piles of crumpled paper. She scooped up a bottle and sniffed it. Making a face, she pitched it into the back of the room and then rummaged for another.

Daintily picking her way back to Robin, she held it out to him with a smile.

"Your favourite?" Robin kept his smile, though it didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Oh, haven't had it since before the curse. It's very good." Regina waved at the bottle. "You may have it. I have plenty."

"Thank you, milady." Robin dipped his head in a bow and then gripped the cork of the bottle and yanked it open with a squeak and a pop. He lifted it to his nose, inhaling deeply and then smiled. "Ambrosia? You like the strong stuff."

"It's got a kick." Regina winked a little drunkenly at him.

No, not drunk, she was stoned. Completely off her face on a drink lethal to mortals. She had to be taxing her magic to the limit to just remain conscious, never mind standing upright and –sort of- holding a conversation.

"Regina, ambrosia?!" Snow gaped at her.

"There's plenty, help yourself." Regina waved to the bottle. "I raised you to share, did I not?"

"Regina, you could kill yourself!"

"Pffft!" Regina snorted and rolled her eyes. "Nonsense."

"You've drunk _bottles_ of the stuff! It's meant for _gods_!" Snow threw her arm wide. "WHY?!"

"Because I need to see." Regina looked at Snow as if it was obvious. "Gods…can see everything and I need to see…need to see…buckets. Holy Hera, who left all these buckets here?"

Regina looked about herself at all of the buckets filled with water stacked about her on every flat surface.

"Is the roof leaking?"

Snow heaved a sigh out through her nose and then looked at Robin.

"We have to get her sobered up. This is killing her."

"I can see that." Robin's face was a tight mask as he watched Regina quite deliberately step into one of the buckets and stand calf deep in the water.

She pursed her lips and mulled the sensation over, heedless of the displacement spilling water all over the floor, soaking into a pale blue riding coat that had been abandoned crumpled on the polished marble.

"Snow, buckets!" Regina leaped from the bucket and splashed onto the floor again, nearly slithering her feet out from under her and cracking her head off the flagstones.

Robin scooped her up before she brained herself and she shrugged him off as if he'd done nothing. She grabbed Snow by the shoulders and suddenly seemed quite lucid if a little panicked.

"The buckets, it's something about the buckets. Something I've read or seen or heard, something deep in here and I can't quite reach it!" Regina thudded a finger so hard into her temple that Snow heard the sound of bone meeting bone. "It'll kill her. It shall _end _her and I just can't REACH IT. You have to help me."

"Regina, you're not well. You've been taking Ambrosia and even I know that'll kill you pretty quickly. It's a wonder your body hasn't given out yet as it is."

"Oh, my kidneys shut down yesterday I think." Regina shrugged it off and then rallied herself, shaking Snow so hard that she might start rattling. "Listen! Listen, listen, listen. The buckets. The buckets are the key and I don't know why! HELP ME!"

"How could I possibly help you?!" Snow bellowed back. "You're killing yourself and I WON'T help with that!"

"I'm too clever." Regina hissed. "The Ambrosia, I can see everything, the walls are numbers, I can hear smells, see sounds, every single part of my brain is on fire and I need someone stupid. It's either you or your husband since we don't have Emma anymore."

Regina weaved a little and her stomach heaved. For a moment, Snow thought she would throw up on her, but she rallied herself and continued.

"Talk to me about buckets. What do you know?"

"They…" Snow stared helplessly at this force of nature that had been brought so low. A woman that had rearranged the world in a fit of rage, a woman that cast a fifty foot shadow, a woman she had never before realised was actually two inches shorter than her, a woman that should _never_ have been so broken as she was now.

"They're for carrying things. For cleaning. They are somewhat disastrous when given to enchanted brooms. If you upend them they make pretty good seats. They…they…"

"A bucket of cold water is a shock." Robin offered when Snow seemed to be running out of spectacular things to say about a very ordinary object.

Regina spun and pounced, disappearing the distance between Robin and herself in less time than it took to blink. She clutched him by the ears and stared madly into his eyes.

"Say that again."

"A sharp shock is often referred to as a bucket of cold water?"

"Genius…" Regina seemed to look inward for a moment, compiling the information, mulling it over. "Water…not the buckets, but _water._ HAH! Clever thief!"

Regina went up on her toes, tugged him close and kissed him full on the mouth.

"You just…" Robin looked a little stunned.

"Well, you deserved a reward and I can't blow you, my step-daughter's here." Regina stage whispered and jerked her head back towards Snow. "And keep the smooches to yourself or everyone will want one." She grinned and pinched his cheek, whirling to Snow who looked slightly more shocked than Robin.

"Water. Not just shock but _anaphylactic _shock." Regina enunciated the words with clips of her teeth. "The Witch…is allergic to water. THAT'S what I could see. Those _stupid_ pointy and BROAD BRIMMED hats. So not even the rain can find her."

"Regina…" Snow took a step towards her when she noticed the blood beginning to trickle from Regina's tear ducts. Regina just smirked and pointed to herself with both hands.

"_I _am a genius."

Then her bloodied eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed like a puppet with cut strings.

Two sets of hands caught her before she hit the floor.

_**Six Days Later…**_

Regina's eyes snapped open and she burst back into consciousness like a brick to the head. She surged, sitting bolt upright, and made a choked off stifled sound of agony when every single fibre of her body protested.

Her body seized in shock, her hands formed into claws, her eyes flew wide and she went an unhealthy grey colour.

"Easy." A deep voice rolled over her and Regina sagged back into the bed, her muscles going into a sporadic spasm with the aftershocks of such agony.

She felt the mattress dip as someone sat beside her and a hazy figure came into view.

Warm fingers traced over her cheeks. Cold and wet cheeks, the pain had wrung tears from watering eyes, and her unknown nurse cleaned them gently away.

"Finally, normal tears. I thought you were going to bleed to death through your bedamned eyeballs."

Regina blinked rapidly, trying to get the room to coalesce from blurs of colour and shape into something a little clearer.

It was a man, sitting on the bed, she could tell from the voice. A voice which sounded familiar, but that was all she could glean.

"Wha…" Regina gave up sharply on speaking when she realised her voice sounded like gravel mating with glass and hurt just as much.

"What happened?" The question accompanied a hand sliding under the back of her neck and lifting her so that she could sip from a goblet of water.

As soon as the cool, clear, liquid hit her tongue, Regina ignored the pain it caused her to move and clapped both hands over his on the chalice, guzzling the water down as fast as she could without drowning herself.

"Easy!" Her nurse growled at her and she ignored him, sagging back into the mattress only once the water was done. She panted, blinking blearily still.

Her head felt like it was filled with cotton wool. Her skin felt like it had been taken off, stretched until it was an ill fit and then stapled on again. Her teeth and nails felt oddly brittle, her tongue seemed to have grown fur in the night and her eyes seemed to be freewheeling in their sockets. She decided just to close them and not bother with sight for now.

"Woman, you are hard work."

Regina coughed something like a laugh.

"As to your gargled question; you drank Ambrosia until you passed out. You've been under for six days. We thought you might die."

Regina forced her eyes to open at the strain of…something that sounded dangerously like concern in his voice. She blinked a few times more and she got the impression of a square kind of face. Something of a beard, brown hair…maybe. The voice sounded familiar, hauntingly so, but she just couldn't place it.

"I have yet to find something in any world that might kill me." Regina murmured and sounded a little frustrated about it. She rested back in the pillows and settled in to quietly ache.

"Yes, well, that's no excuse to go around looking for such things."

"Don't sound so testy." Regina murmured. "I'll live long enough to fight the witch off. Save everyone's skin. The only thing I'm good for, after all."

"The pity party is getting old."

"Try living it." Regina coughed a laugh and managed to open her eyes. Ah, that was a little better, they were at least both pointing in the same direction now. She frowned at the ceiling.

It seemed decidedly closer than she thought it should be. Too wonky as well. Slanted and…rippling?

Was she _still_ drunk?

"Where am I?"

"My tent. In your garden."

"Oh." Regina absorbed that. "Who are you?"

"Robin…for the twenty sixth time."

"Asked that before, have I?" Regina seemed to be taking all of this in her stride and carefully, very carefully, sat up. Oh, that was much better.

She still couldn't see very many details, but colours and shapes were making a comeback.

"A fair few." Robin nodded.

"So…why am I in your tent in my garden? Seems an odd place for a camping trip. Someone try and kill me while I slept?"

"No, we managed to get a message to the faeries as to what had befallen you. Blue was…out but Tinkerbelle helped. She relayed between us and Belle at the Dark One's castle. The lady Belle managed to find an old book on healing. It mentioned something about putting you in a place where you were most at peace with your magic. Queen Snow suspected it might be here."

"Oh." Regina turned her legs _very_ carefully and slipped her feet down onto the ground. The earth was freshly turned, like someone had been digging. She pushed her feet against it, absorbing the sensation of the soft dirt against the soles of her feet. She made fists with her toes in it and smiled.

That did feel better.

"That was surprisingly clever." Regina looked over at the green blur that was Robin. More and more details were beginning to coalesce. "Though you'd have been better burying me in it up to my neck."

"We did."

"We did?" Regina stilled suddenly and it became apparent to her that she was wearing just a man's linen shirt. It smelled of forest.

"Well, Tinkerbelle and Queen Snow did. I'm not that much of a cad."

"The jury's still out." Regina shifted, feeling suddenly out of sorts. She could almost see his face again but she was beginning to remember what he looked like. Most of the last week was still very hazy in her Ambrosia hangover, but she remembered giving him payment for helping her into the castle.

Payment and his marching orders. Seemed that he wasn't the type to listen beyond 'gold'.

"Oh, gods, they'll have bathed me as well." Regina folded forward and dropped her face into her hands.

"If you didn't want to be naked in front of your step-daughter and faerie friend, perhaps you shouldn't have gotten yourself so insensible on a drink meant as tipple only for gods."

"She hasn't been my step-daughter in a very long time." Regina murmured into her palms and rubbed at her eyes. They felt like they were filled with sand still, but she could almost see as well as she had before her bender. "Besides, I needed to."

"I'm sure there were ways other than nearly killing yourself."

"I'm good for ONE thing, thief, and that's killing stuff the rest of them don't like. I do the unspeakable horrors so nobody else has to, that's how it works. Why is there suddenly a line that shouldn't be crossed when the horrors are directed at myself? Because you need to keep me alive to be stuck in such an existence for as long as is possible? I didn't think that even _I _deserved such cruelty."

"That's not it at all!" Robin glared at her and –when she glared back- realised that her sight had returned. "People care about you."

"Really?" She scoffed at him with a mocking smile. "Name _one_ that doesn't want me here just to take care of the Witch."

"Papa?"

Robin twisted when the flap of the tent opened and a little face surrounded in a riot of curls poked inside.

"Is Gina awake yet?" Roland, the thief's son, brightened when his eyes landed on Regina, sitting up and conscious. "Gina!"

"Gina?" Regina looked at Robin and was completely unprepared for the little bundle of giggling that was Roland hurling himself onto the bed and wrapping his arms around her neck.

"You awake!"

"Uff!" Regina was still too weak and she was sent sprawling backwards until she thumped down onto the pillows of the cot with Roland on top of her. She coughed under his tiny weight and Robin hurriedly lifted her son from crushing her chest.

"Roland, I told you she wasn't well."

"I'm alright." Regina assured Roland when he immediately looked horrified at what he had done. It was a bald-faced lie. She'd gone white and a cold sweat was slicking her skin. "You just surprised me."

"Sorry, Gina." Roland allowed himself to be settled on his father's knee. "Hug Buffkin, he make you feel better."

"Buffkin?" Regina felt a runnel of dread trickle down her spine. She looked about herself, fully unprepared for one of the Merry Men to make an appearance.

"Buffkin." Robin leaned over and picked up the stuffed animal that she had conjured for Roland. The one she had made out of the flying monkey that had attacked them on the road.

"Oh." Regina accepted it dumbly and looked down into the blank glassy eyes. "You kept it."

"Course!" Roland sounded offended and Regina actually sat back from the veracity of his argument. "He means you good. So I keeped him."

"Kept him." Robin corrected mildly and Roland nodded, taking that as his father's support rather than a correction.

"I…see." She didn't.

"Roland cares." Robin rested his chin atop his son's head and smirked. "Buffkin too. That's _two _people. I cannot say that I do not wish for you to fight the Wicked Witch because I know that you are perhaps the only one that can, but I _can_ say that I will fight at your side and not cower behind you. You are not a weapon to ME, majesty, you are a person. A person that saved my son's life and that debt is not nearly repaid. If I have to save you from yourself a hundred times over until you see that you are worth the effort, it shall be done."

Regina blinked at him and then looked hurriedly down at Buffkin when she felt her eyes burn. A burn that had nothing to do with the grit of an ambrosia hangover. She stared at the stuffed toy and something came back to her about flying monkeys. Something about reverse-engineering a spell…maybe…

"There are no children in the castle, are there, Roland?"

"Some." Roland shrugged. "But they all bigger than me."

"Hmm." She lifted her head and looked at him and held up Buffkin, turning him to face Roland. "He makes me good?"

"No. You are good. He just means I can showed the other people that don't believe me." Roland got mulish suddenly. "I show them."

Regina managed something like a smile and looked back down at Buffkin the stuffed monkey.

Magic suddenly engulfed her hands and shimmered in a bright light that seared her eyes and caused Robin to stiffen and shield his son from it. Roland cried out when he thought she was destroying his treasured toy.

A cry that turned into a soft gasp of awe when the light died away and Regina was left with Buffkin still in her arms.

But a very different Buffkin to the one that had just been lying inert in her hands.

Buffkin, the living winged monkey, whistled jauntily and hopped up onto her shoulder. He chittered happily and circled behind her head to perch on her other shoulder, his long tail coiled loosely about her neck.

"He's beyoooootiful." Roland whispered, starstruck and Regina smiled.

She reached up and tickled Buffkin's chin. The monkey crooned and closed his eyes, leaning into the contact. He was nothing at all like the wire furred Witch's monkeys.

He was small, about the size of a small cat, with gleaming white feathers rather than fur. The skin of his paws and face was a deep amber colour, his eyes a lurid yellow and his wings were a brilliant blue with green and silver wing feathers.

"Buffkin, this is Roland." Regina pointed to the little boy who was staring in abject wonder. "You're going to look after one another."

Buffkin chittered and Regina chuckled.

"Yes, he will help you find fruit. All you have to do is be his friend." She turned to look at the little monkey and smiled when he rubbed his almost dog shaped nose against hers. He chittered and crooned to her again and she laughed. "Yes, I believe that Roland has lots of cuddles to give."

Roland nodded hurriedly and Regina patted the spot on the bed beside her.

Roland practically dived to occupy it as soon as possible but jolted in his father's hold.

Robin's jaw was clenched and he glared at Buffkin so fiercely that the little animal retreated behind Regina and buried his face in her hair.

"You're scaring him." Regina informed him coolly. "I would do nothing to harm Roland. Ever. Nor any animal in my care."

Not anymore at least.

Robin slowly released his son and Roland clambered from his lap and onto the bed to sidle close to Regina.

Regina eventually convinced Buffkin to come out from behind her and carefully made introductions between Roland and the monkey. She explained to the boy that Buffkin was very young and would need lots of different fruits to eat and warm milk to drink. She would even give him special permission to eat from the apple tree in this very garden and no one other than her was allowed to do that.

She dispatched him to go and pick apples with Buffkin and it was only when the flap that served as a door to the tent flopped back into place that she turned alarmingly green.

"Majesty?"

Regina abruptly folded in half and stuck her head between her knees, gasping in harsh pants and trying desperately not to throw up all over the shoes of the man that had spent the last however many days nursing her back to health. She might have been the Evil Queen but there were lines that even she wouldn't cross.

"I'm fine." She gasped.

"Oh certainly." Robin rolled his eyes and moved to the floor of the tent.

He gripped her by the shoulders and hauled her down off the bed, sitting her beside him on the ground and propped her up against his chest, his arms wrapped around her shoulders.

"Get off me."

He might have been more inclined to obey the order had she had the strength to push him away or even speak without her teeth chattering violently together.

"Foolish woman. That was a waste of magic you could ill afford." He rubbed vigorously at her arms and shoulders trying to keep her warm at the same time as keep her connected to the earth. When she had seized these past few days, the spasms always lessened when she was lain on the earth.

"Did you see his smile?" Regina spoke through gritted teeth to try and stop her shivering. Her hand white knuckled in his shirt, tearing painfully at the hair on his chest beneath, but he didn't complain. "Totally worth it."

"Idiot female." Robin murmured and rested his chin on top of her head as he had done Roland just moments before. He kept rubbing at her arms and back. Keeping her warm, cradling her close. "You're still not well."

"Heh." She managed something like a laugh. "I haven't been well in a long, long, time."

"Well, that's about to change."

"You think so?" She shivered harder and curled her legs up towards her chest. She didn't mean to, but her body turned in towards his, seeking the warmth and protection of his arms even whilst that hard bitch part of her screamed at her not to.

"I know so."

"How is that?"

"Because you never had anyone to look after you before now."

"Volunteering for the job are we?" Her condescending tone was somewhat ruined by the way her arm snuck around his waist to try and get even closer to him. Though she suspected getting closer might involve crawling into his shirt with him.

Her struggle to find a reason not to was interrupted by his voice.

"Someone has to do it."

"I won't thank you."

"I saw his smile." Robin shifted so that she was curled between his legs. He reached over and dragged the blanket from the cot, wrapping it around her. "You already have."

Regina lay in his arms and shivered. She shivered so hard she thought she might break. She was tired. She was so tired. Her forehead rested against his chest and she felt the steady thump of his heart under his ribs. It had been a long, long, time since she had been so close to a heart that didn't pound with fear.

Slowly, gradually, torturously, the shivers lessened. They stopped and started in bouts of convulsive teeth chattering until finally they were done and she could lie exhausted in his arms, panting into his chest.

"Do you think you could lie abed now?"

Regina stiffened so hard he thought she might start shivering again, he guessed she must have been on the verge of sleep when he had wakened her. He cursed himself silently. Now she would fight him again.

"I…I'm still cold."

"You'll soon warm up in the cot." Robin gathered her in his arm and made as if to stand.

"I'm filthy."

"The linens will wash." Robin lifted her and himself both without a sign of effort. He cradled her against his chest and moved to the cot, settling her down onto it. He stood patiently whilst she pried her hand from his shirt and spun suddenly away from him, facing the canvas wall of the tent, lying there as tense as if she expected him to set fire to her at any given moment.

Robin ignored it and turned away, scooping up more and more blankets. He drew one after the other over her and then kicked off his boots, lifted the blankets and slid under them.

"_What_ do you think you're doing?" Her voice was low and dangerous but still quite weak.

"Keeping you warm. Come here." He didn't wait for her agreement and gathered her into his arms again, tugging her resistant self into his chest. Smirking when her head once again rested over his heart and her fingers tangled in the material of his shirt.

"This doesn't make us friends." She mumbled into his chest and he smiled, putting his arm behind his head for a cushion.

"Perish the thought."

"I mean it."

"As do I." Robin agreed mildly. "I would say that we are already more than mere friends."

"Really?" She wanted to lift her head and glare at him but that would require both moving and letting cold air in under the blankets.

"You did kiss me, after all."

"I…did?"

"Oh yes, there was the offer of more but you mentioned that we probably shouldn't in front of Queen Snow."

"That sounds…a lot like something Drunk Me would say."

"A drunk mouth is a sober mind."

"In your dreams."

"However did you know?"

Her shoulders shook and he was concerned about a return of the convulsions before he heard the low and pleasant sound of her laughter. He smiled when he realised what prize he had won from her.

"I can't remember the last time I laughed."

"Then it was too long ago."

"I'm tired." She sighed into his chest. "So damn tired."

Robin remained silent. He wasn't sure if she referred to the purely physical exhaustion or something altogether more weary on the soul.

"Then rest. I shall watch over you."

"Why?"

"Someone should."

"That's a stupid answer."

"It was a stupid question."

She sighed into his chest, not knowing what to do with that. When she finally spoke again, her voice was far smaller than he had ever expected of her.

"You promise?"

"Aye, I promise."

"Strange."

"What is?"

"I believe you."

Robin smiled and rubbed at her back again. She twined herself closer to him and seemed to surrender to the drugging exhaustion that plagued her. She relaxed, muscle by muscle, until she was boneless against him.

Robin smiled for a long time after that, stroking her back and watching the gentle rippling of the wind shifting the canvas of the tent roof. He turned his head only when a streak of light revealed the tent opening and Roland standing in the doorway. Buffkin perched on his head like a bizarre hat.

Robin held his finger to his lips to indicate the boy should be quiet and Roland nodded. He crept closer to stand by the cot and stretch up onto his toes, looking over his father to see Regina –or Gina as he could not manage her whole name- lying sleeping in his father's arms.

Without asking permission, for fear of being denied, Roland caught his tongue between his lips and clambered up onto the cot. He crawled over Robin, kneeing him in the gut at one point and causing him to bite back a groan, and burrowed under the first couple of layers of blankets.

He wriggled and wormed his way between the two adults and Robin resigned himself to an afternoon of hanging awkwardly over the edge of the cot but he wouldn't move.

Not when Regina had worked her arm around Roland, resting her chin on top of his head and against Robin's shoulder.

Roland, with Buffkin curled like a Danish on his chest, nose tucked under one wing, looked up at his father and beamed a smile.

Robin shook his head, but he was smirking even though he was incredibly uncomfortable. The cot might be built for two if they were willing to get up close and personal with one another but two and a half –three if you counted the monkey- was pushing it.

It was a moment of wriggling and worming on his part and he managed to get his arm under Regina and Roland both. With a heft that made her grumble, Roland giggle and Buffkin squeak in alarm, Robin managed to move both Regina and Roland so that they more or less lay on top of him.

Though it was certainly more rather than less.

Robin seethed out a breath at finally being able to relax and put up with the elbowing and squirming that Roland subjected him too as he found a new nook to nest in between Robin and Regina.

Buffkin squeaked and chirped at being unsettled so rudely and finally crawled onto Roland's chest again. Resuming impressions of coiled pastries.

Finally, once everyone was as comfortable and cosy as they could be. They slept.

Robin lay there, thinking he wouldn't join them, but then the magic of his son's relaxed breathing, Regina's warm and soft weight on him, the incredible heat under the mountain of blankets and two bodies went to work. Robin felt his eyes growing heavier and heavier until he too finally succumbed to sleep.

That was how Her Majesty Snow White found them later in the day. She had come to take over watching Regina and had been more than a little surprised to find Regina, Robin, Roland and a miscellaneous animal all piled together on the cot.

Regina was going to be _furious_ when she woke up.

Snow smirked.

Smelled of forest indeed. Robin wouldn't be the only one wearing _eau de pine_ now, that was for sure.

Still smirking to herself, Snow left the tent and headed back to find Charming.

Looked like she wasn't needed to nurse Regina back to health after all.

That position had been filled.


End file.
